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Roman Navy
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The Roman Navy comprised the naval forces of the Roman state. Unlike modern naval forces, it never existed as an autonomous service, but operated as an adjunct to the Roman army. Founded in ca. 311 BC, and massively expanded during the course of the First Punic War, the Roman navy played a vital role in the early stages of the Roman Republic's ascension to hegemony in the Mediterranean Sea, especially in the wars against Carthage. However, it was gradually reduced in size and significance, undertaking mainly policing duties, under the Empire. In the 4th century, the bulk of the Roman fleet was moved to the Eastern Roman Empire, and continued to serve as the Byzantine navy.
History
Early RepublicThe first mention of a Roman fleet is in ca. 311 BC, after the conquest of Campania, when two new officials, the duumviri navales, were appointed on an ad hoc basis and tasked with the maintenance of a fleet. As a result, the Republic acquired its first fleet, consisting of 20 ships, most likely triremes, with each duumvir commanding a squadron of 10 ships. Nevertheless, prior to the First Punic War the main task of this fleet was patrolling along the Italian coast and rivers, protecting seaborne trade from piracy. Whenever larger tasks had to be undertaken, such as the naval blockade of a besieged city, the Romans called on the allied Greek cities of southern Italy, the socii navales, to provide ships and crews.
Punic Wars The first Roman expedition outside mainland Italy was against the island of Sicily in 265 BC, which led to the outbreak of hostilities with Carthage. Carthage at the time was the dominant sea power in the western Mediterranean, possessing a long maritime and naval experience and a large fleet. Operations in Sicily had to be supported by a fleet, so in 261 BC, the Romans set out to construct a fleet of 100 quinquiremes and 20 triremes. According to Polybius, the Romans seized a shipwrecked Carthaginian warship, and used it as a blueprint for a massive naval build-up. The new fleets were commanded by the annually elected Roman magistrates, but naval expertise was provided by the lower officers, who continued to be provided by the socii, mostly Greeks. This practice was continued until well into the Empire, something also attested by the direct adoption of numerous Greek naval terms.
Despite the buildup, the Roman crews remained inferior in naval experience to the Carthaginians, and could not hope to match them in naval tactics, which required great maneuverability. They therefore employed a novel weapon which transformed sea warfare to their advantage. They equipped their ships with the corvus, possibly developed earlier by the Syracusians against the Athenians. This was a long plank with a spike for hooking onto enemy ships. Using it as a boarding bridge, marines were able to board an enemy ship, transforming sea combat into a version of land combat, where the Roman legionaries had the upper hand. However, it is believed that the corvus' weight made the ships unstable, and could capsize a ship in rough seas.
Although the first sea engagement, the Battle of the Lipari Islands in 260 BC, was a defeat for Rome, the forces involved were relatively small. Through the use of the corvus, the fledgling Roman navy won its first major engagement later that year at the Battle of Mylae. During the course of the war, Rome continued to win victories at sea and gained naval experience, although it also suffered a number of catastrophic losses due to storms, while conversely, the Carthaginian navy suffered from attrition. Their string of successes allowed Rome to push the war further across the sea to Africa and Carthage itself, and in the last battle of the war, at Aegates Islands in 241 BC, the Romans displayed superior seamanship to the Carthaginians.
At the beginning of the Second Punic War, the balance of naval power in the Western Mediterranean had shifted from Carthage to Rome. This caused Hannibal, Carthage's great general, to shift the strategy, bringing the war to the Italian peninsula. Unlike the first war, the navy played little role on either side in this war or in the Third Punic War, except for carrying supplies and reinforcements. Long before Rome conquered Illyria in 168 BC and established the region as a province, the First Illyrian War in 229 BC marks the date which the Roman Navy first sailed across the Adriatic Sea and began her eastwards expansion. As Rome became increasingly involved in the affairs of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Roman fleet played again an important role. By the end of the 2nd century BC, Roman control over all of what was later to be dubbed mare nostrum ("our sea") had been established.
Late Republic
The pirate threat After Rome's eventual victory over Carthage, there was no other sea power left to contend with Rome's marine might in the West. Following the defeat of Macedon, Rhodes and the Seleucid Empire in the early 2nd century BC, and the disbandment of their navies, the Roman Navy was drastically reduced, depending on their Greek allies to supply ships and crews as needed. In the absence of a strong naval presence however, and with the disruption caused by the Mithridatic Wars, piracy flourished throughout the Mediterranean, especially in Cilicia, but also in Crete and other places,
further reinforced by money and warships supplied by Mithridates of Pontus, who hoped to enlist them in his wars against Rome. The pirates defeated several Roman commanders, and raided unhindered even the shores of Italy. Their activity posed a growing threat for the Roman economy, and several prominent Romans, including two praetors with the retinue and the young Julius Caesar, were captured and held for ransom. But perhaps most importantly, the pirates disrupted the Rome's lifeline: the massive shipments of grain and other produce from Africa and Egypt that were needed to sustain the city's population.
The grain shortages were a major political issue, as popular discontent threatened to become explosive. In 74 BC, with the outbreak of the Third Mithridatic War, Marcus Antonius (the father of Mark Antony) was appointed praetor with extraordinary imperium, but signally failed to defeat the pirates; rather, he was defeated off Crete in 72 BC, and died shortly after. Finally, in 67 BC the Lex Gabinia was passed in the Plebeian Council, vesting Pompey with unprecedented powers and authorizing him to move against them. In a massive and concerted campaign, Pompey cleared the seas from the pirates. Afterwards, the fleet was reduced again to policing duties against intermittent piracy. The last major campaign of the Roman navy in the Mediterranean until the 3rd century AD would be in the civil wars that ended the Republic.
The Civil Wars
As the Roman Republic unraveled, competing Roman generals once again built up their naval might. Sextus Pompeius, in his conflict with Octavian, had been given command of the Italian fleet by the Senate in 43 BC, and controlled the politically crucial supply of grain from Sicily to Rome. After suffering a defeat from Sextus in 42 BC, Octavian initiated massive naval armaments, aided by his closest associate, Marcus Agrippa: ships were built at Ravenna and Ostia, the new harbor of Portus Julius built at Cumae, and soldiers and rowers levied, including over 20,000 manumitted slaves. Finally, Octavian and Agrippa defeated Sextus in the Battle of Naulochus in 36 BC, putting an end to all Pompeian resistance. Octavian's power was further enhanced after his victory against the combined fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where Antony had assembled 500 ships against Octavian's 400 ships. This last naval battle of the Roman Republic definitively established Octavian as the sole ruler over Rome and the Mediterranean world. In the aftermath of his victory, he formalized the Fleet's structure, establishing several key harbors in the Mediterranean (see below). The now fully professional navy had its main duties consist of protecting against piracy, escorting troops and patrolling the river frontiers of Europe. It remained however active in the periphery of the Empire.
Principate
Operations under Augustus
Under Augustus and after the conquest of Egypt there were increasing demands from the Roman economy to extend the trade lanes to India. The Arabian control of all sea routes to India was an obstacle. One of the first naval operations under princeps Augustus was therefore the preparation for a campaign on the Arabian peninsula. Aelius Gallus, the prefect of Egypt ordered the construction of 130 transports and subsequently carried 10,000 soldiers to Arabia. But the following march through the desert towards Yemen failed and the plans for control of the Arabian peninsula had to be abandoned.
At the other end of the Empire, in Germania, the navy played an important role in the supply and transport of the legions. In 15 BC an independent fleet was installed at the Lake Constance. Later, the generals Drusus and Tiberius used the Navy extensively, when they tried to extend the Roman frontier to the Elbe. In 12 BC Drusus ordered the construction of a fleet of 1,000 ships and sailed them along the Rhine into the North Sea. The Frisians and Chauci had nothing to oppose the superior numbers, tactics and technology of the Romans. When these entered the river mouths of Weser and Ems, the local tribes had to surrender.
In 5 BC the Roman knowledge concerning the North and Baltic Sea was fairly extended during a campaign by Tiberius, reaching as far as the Elbe: Plinius describes how Roman naval formations came past Heligoland and set sail to the north-eastern coast of Denmark, and Augustus himself boasts in his Res Gestae: "My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea...". The multiple naval operations north of Germania had to be abandoned after the battle of the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 AD.
Julio-Claudian dynasty
In the years 15 and 16, Germanicus carried out several fleet operations along the rivers Rhine and Ems, without permanent results due to grim Germanic resistance and a disastrous storm. By 28, the Romans lost further control of the Rhine mouth in a succession of Frisian insurgencies. From 37 to 85, the Roman navy played an important role in the Roman conquest of Britain. Especially the classis Germanica rendered outstanding services in multitudinous landing operations. In 46 a naval expedition made a push deep into the Black Sea region and even travelled on the Tanais. By 57 an expeditionary corps reached Chersonesos (see Charax, Crimea).
It seems that under Nero the navy obtained strategically important positions for trading with India; but there was no known fleet in the Red Sea. Possibly, parts of the Alexandrian fleet were operating as escorts for the Indian trade. In the Jewish revolt, from 66 to 70, the Romans were forced to fight Jewish ships, operating from a harbour in the area of modern Tel Aviv, on Israel's Mediterranean coast. In the meantime several flotilla engagements on the Sea of Galilee took place.
Flavian, Antonine and Severan dynasties During the Batavian rebellion of Gaius Julius Civilis, the rebels got hold of a squadron of the Rhine fleet by treachery, but could not employ it in a decisive strike against the rival fleet. The remaining ships returned to Imperial authority, when Civilis was defeated in open battle.
In the years 82 to 85, the Romans launched a campaign against the Caledonians in modern Scotland. In this context the Roman navy significantly escalated activities on the eastern Scottish coast. Simultaneously multiple expeditions and reconnaissance trips were launched. During these the Romans would capture the Orkney Islands for a short period of time and obtained information about the Shetland Islands. Supposedly the Romans also landed on the Hebrides and in Ireland.
Under the Five Good Emperors the navy operated mainly on the rivers; so it played an important role during Trajan's conquest of Dacia and temporarily an independent fleet for the Euphrates and Tigris rivers was founded. Also during the wars against the Marcomanni confederation under Marcus Aurelius several combats took place on the Danube and the Tisza.
Under the aegis of the Severan dynasty, the only known military operations of the navy were carried out under Septimius Severus, using naval assistance on his campaigns along the Euphrates and Tigris, as well as in Scotland. Thereby Roman ships reached inter alia the Persian Gulf and the top of the British Isles.
Third century crisis
Under the barracks emperors, the navy made it through a major crisis, when, during the rule of Trebonianus Gallus, for the first time Germanic tribes built up their own powerful fleet in the Black Sea. Via two surprise attacks (256) on Roman naval bases in the Caucasus and near the Danube, numerous ships fell into the hands of the Germans, whereupon the raids were extended as far as the Aegean Sea; Byzantium, Athens, Sparta and other towns were plundered and the responsible provincial fleets were heavily debilitated. It was not until the attackers made a tactical error, that their onrush could be stopped. In 268 another, much fiercer Germanic attack took place. Part of the invading fleet attacked the Mediterranean islands of Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus, while the other part targeted the Greek mainland. Once again the Romans had nothing to withstand against this attack. Only when the Germanic force set off for the interior could Claudius Gothicus defeat them.
In 286 the Roman Empire faced again a great danger when the commander of the British Fleet, Carausius, rose up and seceded with Britannia and parts of the northern Gallic coast. With a single blow Roman control of the channel and the North Sea was lost, and emperor Maximinus was forced to create a completely new Northern Fleet, but in lack of training it was almost immediately destroyed in a storm. Only under Caesar Constantius Chlorus was the navy again able to deliver troops to Britannia. By a concentric attack on Londinium the insurgent province was retaken. It has been estimated that the Roman navy's strength was at 46,000 men at the beginning of Diocletian's reign, but the end of his reign, he succeeded in increasing it to 64,000 men.
Late Antiquity
In 330 both main fleets were stationed in Constantinople. Classic naval battles were now a rare case. Documents tell of the victory of Crispus over the fleet of Licinius in 324, the destruction of the boats under Gainas in 400 and naval operations in the struggle with Geiseric in the 5th century. The Roman fleets suffered defeats against the powerful Vandal fleet in 460 and 468, under the emperors Majorian and Anthemius. When the Völkerwanderung struck with full force on the Roman borders, the endeavors of the navy could hardly change a thing. Until the breakdown of the Western Roman Empire in 476 the Roman warships were solely employed to evacuate Roman citizens out of troublespots. The navy stationed in the Eastern Empire became the cadre for the Byzantine navy. Under the rule of Justinian I triremes were still in use, although mainly dromons were employed, Constantinople was itself protected by a fleet of liburnians.
Timeline of major events
- First Punic War
- Battle of the Lipari Islands, 260 BC, minor Carthaginian victory.
- Battle of Mylae, 260 BC, Roman victory.
- Battle of Sulci, 258 BC, Roman victory, obtained by consul Gaius Sulpicius Paterculus.
- Battle of Tyndaris, 257 BC, Roman victory.
- Battle of Cape Ecnomus, 256 BC, Roman victory, involving huge fleets on both sides.
- Battle of Drepana, 249 BC, Carthaginian victory.
- Battle of the Aegates Islands, 241 BC, Roman victory; led to the end of the war.
- 461: Emperor Majorian assembles 300 ships to transport his army to north Africa.
- 468: a Vandalic fleet defeats the Roman fleet commanded by Basiliscus.
Notable admirals
Organization
Crews The bulk of a ship's crew was formed by the rowers the remiges (sing. remex) or eretai in Greek. Despite popular perception, the Roman fleet relied throughout its existence on rowers of free status, and galley slaves were usually not put at the oars, except in times of pressing manpower demands or extreme emergency. In Imperial times, non-citizen freeborn provincials (peregrini) and ex-slaves became the mainstay of the Roman rowing force.
Among the crew were usually also a number of principales (junior officers) and immunes (specialists exempt from certain duties), some of which, mostly in administrative positions, were identical to those of the army auxiliaries and some of which (mostly of Greek provenance) were peculiar to the fleet. An inscription from the island of Cos dated to the First Mithridatic War lists us a ship's officers, the nautae: the gubernator (kybernetes in Greek) was the helmsman or pilot, the celeusta (keleustes in Greek) supervised the rowers, a proreta (proreus in Greek) was the look-out stationed at the bow, a pentacontarchos was apparently a junior officer, and an iatros (Lat. medicus), a ship's doctor.
Each ship was commanded by a trierarchus, while squadrons were put under a nauarchus, who often appears to have risen from the ranks of the trierarchi. The position of nauarchus princeps appeared later in the Imperial period, who functioned either as a commander of several squadrons or an executive officer under a civilian admiral. These were professional officers, usually peregrini who had a status equal to an auxiliary centurion (and were thus increasingly called centuriones [classiarii] after ca. AD 70). Only in the 3rd century were these officers equated to the legionary centurions in status and pay, and could henceforth be transferred to a legionary position.
During the early Principate, a ship's crew, regardless of its size, was organized as a centuria. Crewmen could sign on as marines, rowers/seamen, craftsmen and various other jobs, though all personnel serving in the imperial fleet were classed as milites ("soldiers"), regardless of their function; only when differentiation was required, the terms classiarius or classicus were added. Along with several other instances of prevalence of army terminology, this testifies to the lower status of the naval personnel, who were inferior to the auxiliaries and the legionaries. Emperor Claudius first gave legal privileges to the navy's crewmen, enabling them to receive Roman citizenship after their period of service. This period was initially set at a minimum of 26 years (one year more than the legions), and was later expanded to 28. Upon honorable discharge (honesta missio), the sailors received a sizable cash payment as well.
High Command
During the Republic, command of a fleet was given to a serving magistrate or promagistrate, usually of consular or praetorian rank. During the Punic Wars for instance, one consul would usually command the fleet, and another the army. In the subsequent wars in the Eastern Mediterranean, praetors would assume the command of the fleet. Since these men were political appointments, the actual handling of the fleets and of separate squadrons was entrusted to their more experienced legates and subordinates. Its was therefore during the Punic Wars that the separate position of praefectus classis ("fleet prefect") first appeared.
After the fleet's reorganization by Augustus, the term praefectus classis was used for the commanders of the various fleets. They were initially appointed either from among the Emperor's freedmen or from the equestrian class, securing the Emperor's control over the fleets. From the period of the Flavian emperors, only equestrians with military experience who had gone through the militia equestri, were appointed. Nevertheless, the prefects were political appointees, and despite their military experience, usually in command of army auxiliary units, their experience in naval matters was minimal, forcing them to rely on their professional subordinates.
Ship types
The generic Roman term for an oar-driven galley warship was "long ship" (Latin: navis longa, Greek: naus makra), as opposed to the sail-driven navis oneraria, a merchant vessel, or the navigia minora, the smaller craft, like the scapha.
The navy consisted of a wide variety of different classes of warships, from the heavy polyremes to the light raiding and scouting vessels. During and after the Punic Wars, the mainstay of the Roman navy was the quinquereme (Gk. penteres), which was copied from a captured Carthaginian model, and the quadrireme (Gk. tetreres). Triremes continued to serve as well as a smaller, faster vessel, especially among the allied contingents. The term "trireme" can however refer to several types of ships with three banks throughout the Republican and Imperial periods, and is not necessarily indicative of one particular design. In addition, the presence of two "sixes" (hexareme, Gk. hexeres) is recorded, which were used as flagships. The Romans do not seem to have engaged in the construction of gigantic warships like their contemporary Hellenistic navies, at least until the Civil Wars. During the final confrontation between Octavian and Mark Antony, Octavian's fleet was composed of quinqueremes, together with some "sixes" and many triremes and liburnians, while Antony, who had the resources of Ptolemaic Egypt to draw upon, fielded a fleet also mostly composed of quinquiremes, but with a sizeable complement of heavier warships, including some "tens" (deceres). Later historical tradition made much of the prevalence of lighter and swifter vessels in Octavian's fleet, with Vegetius even ascribing Octavian's victory to the liburnians.
This prominence of lighter craft is perhaps best explained in light of subsequent developments. After Actium, the operational landscape had changed: for the remainder of the Principate, no naval opponent existed to challenge Roman naval hegemony, and no massed naval confrontation was likely. The tasks at hand for the Roman navy were now policing the Mediterranean waterways and the border rivers, suppression of piracy, and escort duties for the grain shipments and for imperial army expeditions. Lighter ships were far better suited to these tasks, and after the reorganization of the fleet, the largest ship kept in service was a hexareme, the flagship of the Classis Misenensis. The bulk of the fleets was composed of the lighter triremes and liburnians (Latin: liburna, Greek: libyrnis), with the latter apparently providing the majority of the provincial fleets. In time, the term "liburnian" came to mean "warship" in a generic sense.
In addition, there were smaller oared vessels, such as the navis actuaria, with 30 oars (15 on each bank), a ship primarily used for transport in coastal and fluvial operations, for which its shallow draught and flat keel were ideal. In late Antiquity, it was succeeded in this role by the navis lusoria ("playful ship"), which was extensively used for patrols and raids by the legionary flotillas in the Rhine and Danube frontiers.
Roman ships were commonly named after gods (Mars, Iuppiter, Minerva, Isis), mythological heroes (Hercules), and concepts such as Harmony, Loyalty, Victory (Concordia, Fides, Victoria). They were distinguished by their figurehead (insigne or parasemum), and, during the Civil Wars at least, by the paint schemes on their turrets, which varied according to each fleet.
Armament and tactics
In Classical Antiquity, a ship's main weapon was the ram (rostra, hence the name navis rostrata for a warship), which was used to sink or immobilize an enemy ship by holing its hull. Its use however required a skilled and experienced crew and a fast and agile ship like a trireme or quinquireme. In the Hellenistic period, the larger navies came instead to rely on greater vessels. This had several advantages: the heavier and sturdier construction lessened the effects of ramming, the greater space and stability of the vessels allowed the transport not only of more marines, but also the placement of deck-mounted ballistae and catapults. Although the ram continued to be a standard feature of all warships and ramming the standard mode of attack, these developments transformed the role of a warship: from the old "manned missile", designed to sink enemy ships, they became mobile artillery platforms, which engaged in missile exchange and boarding actions. Especially the Romans, initially inexperienced at sea combat, relied upon boarding actions through the use of the corvus. Although it brought them some decisive victories, it was discontinued because it tended to unbalance the quinqueremes in high seas; two Roman fleets are recorded to have been lost during storms in the First Punic War.
During the Civil Wars, a number of technical innovations, which are attributed to Agrippa, took place: the harpago, a catapult-fired grappling hook, which was used to clamp onto an enemy ship, reel it in and board it, in a much more efficient way than with the old corvus, and the use of collapsible fighting towers placed one apiece bow and stern, which were used to give supporting fire.
Fleets
Principate period After the end of the civil wars, Augustus reduced and reorganized the Roman armed forces, including the navy. A large part of the fleet of Mark Antony was burned, and the rest was withdrawn to a new base at Forum Iulii (modern Fréjus), which remained operative until the reign of Claudius. However, the bulk of the fleet was subdivided into two praetorian fleets at Misenum and Ravenna, supplemented by a growing number of minor ones in the provinces, which were often created on an ad hoc basis for specific campaigns. This organizational structure was maintained almost unchanged until the 4th century.
The two major fleets were stationed in Italy and acted as a central naval reserve, directly available to the Emperor (hence the designation "praetorian"). In the absence of any naval threat, their duties mostly involved patrolling and transport duties. These were:
The various provincial fleets were smaller than the praetorian fleets and composed mostly of lighter vessels. Nevertheless, it was these fleets that saw action, in full campaigns or raids on the periphery of the Empire. The provincial fleets were:
- The Classis Alexandrina, based in Alexandria, it controlled the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea. It was founded by Caesar Augustus around 30 BC, probably from ships that fought at the battle of Actium. Having supported emperor Vespasian in the civil war of 69, it was awarded of the cognomen Augusta, and was called Classis Augusta Alexandrina.
- The Classis Britannica, established in 43 at Portus Itius, it controlled the English Channel and the waters around Britannia
- The Classis Germanica, established in 12 BC at Castra Vetera, it controlled the Rhine river, and was mainly a fluvial fleet, although it also operated in the North Sea
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